(www.meowbarkblog.com) — Today, I found a YouTube video featuring Charley, a cat suffering from cerebellar hypoplasia. But the thing is, Charley isn’t suffering at all! He may fall down a lot, but otherwise he’s a perfectly normal cat with some balance and motor control issues.
Cerebellar hypoplasia is a disorder found in cats and dogs in which the cerebellum is not completely mature at birth.
Usually symptoms of cerebellar hypoplasia can be seen immediately at birth in cats, but sometimes can take two months or so to become apparent in dogs. Cerebellar hypoplasia causes jerky movements, tremors and generally uncoordinated motion. The animal often falls down and has trouble walking. Tremors increase when the animal is excited and subside when at ease. (source)
The neat thing about cerebellar hypoplasia is that the animal typically isn’t in any pain and doesn’t require any special care (though if you have a large dog with the disorder, for instance, it might make sense to pad pointy objects just to be safe).
Meet Charley, and learn more about cerebellar hypoplasia:
Contents Copyright © 2008 Kristen King
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Thanks so much, Kristen, for sharing this wonderful video and getting the information out about this disorder. I didn’t know anything about it.
What a great little guy!
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